Modern vehicles use automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems to receive speech from a vehicle occupant, interpret the speech, and then carry out one or more vehicle functions based on the interpretation. Rather than controlling vehicle functions using physical inputs, such as buttons, dials, or switches, modern vehicles increasingly permit the vehicle occupant to control these functions using speech commands. But when vehicles allow control based on these commands, vehicle occupants expect quick and accurate understanding of what they said. And if ASR systems are slow or unable to interpret speech commands that control vehicle functions, vehicle occupants can be quickly frustrated. ASR system accuracy can be improved by identifying vehicle functions to be controlled by a gate command that is associated with it.